


Reveal

by Higgystar



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Masturbation, Solo, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 02:49:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3793873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Higgystar/pseuds/Higgystar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt on tumblr: Daryl comes to terms with his sexuality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reveal

Daryl tells himself that it’s not a big deal, when in reality it’s about the most important secret he’s ever kept. He doesn’t think he’s ever said the word out loud, not even to himself, but he’s thought it more than enough times over the years.

That forbidden word that he’d laughed at, he’d sneered at, he’d ignored and pretended was only ever applied to other people. He’d done his best, he’d looked at the skin mags Merle bought home, he’d tried kissing a girl and even getting far enough to have his dick sucked by some girl he had sort of half dated. But it never felt right. It had never felt as good as everyone told him it would.

So he’d just ignored it. Put it aside and ignored that whole aspect of his life and pretended that he just didn’t have the time for relationships. He knew people blamed it on his childhood. There were mutterings of his mistrust of relationships due to his parents, his lack of wanting a woman in his life when he was damned near raised in a male only household and even a silent judgement of ‘mommy issues’. Daryl let them wonder, it made things easier.

It wasn’t as if anybody ever had the balls to say anything to his face after all, instead everyone just let him live his life his own way. Except Merle of course. His brother would tease, would poke and prod like Daryl’s lack of a sex life was a personal affront to Merle himself, when in reality it was none of his damned business. But Daryl gets used to it, he ignores it and takes the hits and the laughs and scoffs, because it’s easier than even thinking about that word.

It seems so harmless a word but he knows just how much damage it would do to him. It could get him killed in this backwards hick town of theirs. So he keeps it hidden inside of himself, just something to think about from time to time, something he knew had to be true but could never be said. A secret. His secret and one he never felt he’d get the chance to share with anybody.

It’s difficult. Sometimes. School used to be hard. Puberty was damned difficult enough without being different and being a Dixon on top of having his secret was just icing on the cake. If there was one thing Daryl knew, it was that he was never ever going to fit in. So why try?

So he goes through life being different. Being the dirty little brother of badass Merle Dixon and usually managing to get away with being ignored for most of the time. Only person who doesn’t ignore him all the time is Merle, and that usually only because he’s got money, or food or something that Merle wants.

But his brother is the only one that gives any kind of a shit about him. Merle defends him in fights, he’d practically damn raised him and throughout all the years Daryl knows that it’s only ever going to be him and Merle. It grates a little sometimes. When he thinks about that word and about how even if he tried to ignore it, it still meant something to him. It still was a part of him.

He doesn’t do much about it. Simply because he’s far too chicken shit to ever try, especially not with another person. So it stays in his head, just fantasies and dirty dreams that he plays out from time to time. Of course he jerks off to the thought of it sometimes, the thought of being pressed against a firm chest, being held, having someone pin him down and rub all over him, with stubble against his skin and the rough voice of another man in his ear. It’s enough for him to hold onto. For a while.

The thing is, sometimes his life has got a whole lot of being alone in it. And sometimes, just sometimes, he wonders if it would be so bad to let himself just have a little more of a secret. Merle is off somewhere, getting high or doing deliveries or fuck knows what else, but it means Daryl is alone and for the first time in a while, he’s feeling lonely. Usually he prefers spending his time alone and away from everybody else, but for some reason, right now it’s different.

Sometimes he’ll think about doing something really insane. Like going to the next town over and going to one of the back alley gay bars he knows exists in the shadows. It’s a fantasy though, nothing but a dream he sometimes plays in his head. But he knows he doesn’t have the balls to do anything like that. He’s not done enough of anything with anybody to have that confidence to do that. Plus, what if Merle ever found out?

So that’s still nothing but a dream. A thought he sometimes pretends he’s building up to, one day. Like it’ll happen, but just not now. Not until he’s ready for it. Damn now he really does sound like a damned pussy.

But if the thought of going to find some guy to fuck was too much, then he knows he’d definitely never get the balls to bring someone here. Not that he’d ever want to, Dixon’s weren’t exactly the best hosts, but still it was something other people did. Stuff straight guys did. Stuff Merle did sometimes, stumbling through the door with his tongue down some girl’s throat and fingers somewhere Daryl really didn’t want to think about as he skirted around them enough to get out of the door and away from it all.

Thing is, it was really beginning to feel like he needed something more. There was only so much his imagination could come up with, and though it had been good enough since he was a teenager, right now with Merle away and the place to himself, he kind of wants more. It’s pathetic. He helps Merle run drugs for a living and yet this is the thing that gets his heart racing and palms sweaty. The thought of getting something for himself. Something he’s thought about for years.

They’d never had internet or anything like that, so being a teenager in the Dixon household had consisted of fantasies and skin mags that Merle always seemed to have. Even now they still don’t have any internet or a computer or anything, so there’s never been any actually material that Daryl’s taken an interest in before. He’s only ever had his imagination and suddenly going beyond that to have some physical evidence of his interests inside his home was quite frankly terrifying.

But Merle was gone, he was alone and he was a grown man for fuck’s sake. If he wanted to go and buy himself a porn mag then he had every right to do so. Weren’t illegal. Those magazines were there for a reason. No one had no right to judge a guy for getting himself some material for the lonely nights.

It takes him all morning to work up the courage to drive two towns over, far enough away that no one knew the Dixon truck or his face. Maybe they’d heard of the Dixon’s but they didn’t have any faces to put to the name. It was safer this way, plus it weren’t like he had to give his name or anything anyway. Who the fuck was going to interrogate him anyway? Daryl knew he was letting himself get far too worked up over what was merely a few pages of photos stapled together, but it was a big deal to him.

It was admitting that it wasn’t just in his head. He was buying tools to encourage the fantasies he’d been having since he was a teenager and that was making his long held secret suddenly feel much more real than before. As if having something he was able to physically hold was going to change everything. He sits in the car for a long ass time, building up the courage to go inside the damned store and by the time he finally moves he’s damn near shaking with how nervous he is.

Daryl isn’t exactly sure how to go about it all. Was there a way to do this properly? By the time he actually gets to the rack of magazines he’s chewing on his thumb, and practically snatches the first one he sees that looks to be mad for his particular interests. Grabbing a newspaper he hides it from view, then grabs some beer, some candy, and anything else to make it seem as if this wasn’t a trip for one soul purpose.

He waits until there’s no queue at the cashier before he goes up there, eyes on his feet as he throws it all down on the counter, cash already in hand ready to be handed over. Daryl’s not sure what he’s expecting, but he feels as if he’s going to be called out over the damned magazine the whole time he’s standing there. The nerves are making his palms sweaty and he clenches his fists to try and stop from seeming so damned shifty before he got frisked for shoplifting or something.

But nothing happens. The cashier rings up everything, puts it all in a bag for him, asks for the money, hands him his change and it’s done. Just like that. No chit chat, no questioning looks, just a fake smile and clearly forced wish for him to have a great day. He’s just left to leave the store with his purchases and get on with his life. Still, he can’t help but keep the bag close to his chest as he walks back to the car.

The drive is tense even if he is on his own and there’s a moment that Daryl has to pull over and tell himself to stop being such a godmaned paranoid bitch. Still he shoves the bag beneath the seat though, just in case he gets pulled over. Just in case.

When he gets home the place looks the same as he left it, empty, quiet and with no sign of his brother suddenly reappearing. Letting out a short sigh Daryl grips the bag tightly as he moves to head inside, but the worries make him pause a second, ducking his head inside first and calling out for his brother. You never knew with Merle and it was better to be safe than sorry.

There’s no answer and it’s with a spark of excitement and panic that he steps inside and closes the door, bringing in the evidence to his world. He can’t stop himself from heading to his room, dumping everything else on the couch as he passes and taking only the newspaper and the concealed magazine with him. It’s pathetic but he doesn’t know what to do first. Well he knows what he wants to do, but it suddenly all feels pretty damned overwhelming.

He leaves it on his bed and heads back to the kitchen for a drink of water to calm himself down. To just stop over thinking it all for one second.

But he can’t, and he ends up kicking off his boots, shrugging off his jacket and heading back to his room. The magazine is still there, half hidden by the newspaper, but most definitely there, real and waiting for him. It’s pathetic to be so worked up over a damned magazine, but he can’t help it. Suddenly after years of nothing but guesswork, he had something to enjoy that was catered for his specific tastes.

Sitting on the bed he can’t help but glance to the bedroom door and the lack of a working lock on the damned thing before he reaches out to pick up his prize. It was fine. Nothing about this was wrong or illegal. He wasn’t hurting anybody, all he was doing was what everyone else did. Besides this was what the damned magazine was made for anyway.

It’s with a deep breath that he tugs it free from the newspaper and lets it sit in his lap. The front cover is shiny, nothing too extreme on the front, nothing but a half naked guy looking at the camera with a smirk on his face. Surprisingly Daryl finds himself skimming over the words printed there, trying to get a read of what he was getting into. There were some words he’d never heard before, words that weren’t explained and he figured maybe if his life hadn’t been spent hiding from this all, he might have known what they meant.

Opening up the magazine is like entering a new world, one he’d been hiding away from for so long it felt dangerous to venture in now. There are articles on some pages, pictures of readers that had sent in their own anecdotes, but it wasn’t until he’d flicked past a few pages of those until he got to what he’d bought the damned thing for.

It starts off fairly tastefully at first. There are a few pages of guys in jeans, a couple of the guys in their underwear and Daryl has to admit, it was a damned sight better than just imagining it all. It was easier to think about how it would feel to press against a hard chest when he had a good picture of a hard chest in front of him. Still he continues flicking through the pages, scanning the images and trying to get himself used to actually having some material to enjoy.

There’re all kinds of men in the pictures. Some look big and broad, with full beards and thick muscles. Others look kind of weak, with thin hips and light hair, the kind of guy that Daryl supposed spoke with a lisp and drank fruity cocktails. He doesn’t like them much; they look like they’d break if you were too rough with them. There are a good couples of pictures with guys he does like the look of though. The ones with stubble on their chin, just enough muscles to be defined but not too much. They looked like they could hold their own, like they were confident and could get their own way. He liked that, he liked that they looked like they’d be in control even if they were posing in their underwear.

A couple more pages in and Daryl can feel his breath catch in his throat. It’s pathetic but he finds himself turning away a little with a flush, giving himself a moment to collect himself before he looks at the page again. The guys are still posing, but they’re naked now and their hands are rather busy. He has to swallow to fix the dryness in his throat before he can actually study the images. He’s never seen another guys dick before, especially not when it was hard, and pressed against his belly with his fingers wrapped around it. Licking at his lips he turns the page before he gets distracted, he needed to see what else was in here.

Things get a lot more intense on the next page and Daryl is so glad that no one else is around to hear the breathy noise of excitement that leaves his lips. This time there is more than one guy involved in the double page spread and there’s not a scrap of clothing to be seen. His eyes don’t know what part to focus on there’s so much going on he’s not sure where to begin.

One guy is bent over, on his hands and knees, looking back over his shoulder to the second guy who is…well… Daryl has never even thought about how it would look to see two guys having sex, but it doesn’t look anywhere as complicated as he’d expected. The second guy is on his knees, one hand on the bent over guy’s side and the other in the middle of a reach around as they fuck. Thing is, they’re both enjoying it. 

He’d kind of thought it would have to hurt, but the guys in the picture look anything but in pain. They looked like they were moaning, definitely enjoying themselves as the picture had been taken mid thrust. Daryl can feel his palms sweating again as he holds the magazine, and he knows he doesn’t have the willpower to keep going through the magazine. This is what he’d bought it for, this is what he’d been wanting to explore.

Both of the guys look good, but he likes the one doing the fucking more. He’s got some stubble, it looks like he’s got big strong hands and Daryl bites on his lip as he imagines that grip being moved to his own waist. Why does he feel so guilty for being hard right now? This was the damned point of buying the magazine, to explore this and finally get to enjoy it all properly.

He feels flushed as he moves, letting the magazine lie open on the double spread as he moves to unbutton his pants and slide them down to his thighs. He wants this, he really does, it just feels like a big step to actually have something to look at instead of just his fantasies. Sitting up he rubs his palm over his crotch, letting out a shuddering breath at the feeling of excitement it brings through him. Looking down at the magazine spread, he lets himself integrate the image into his old fantasies.

There were things Daryl knew he liked, knew he wanted, but there were other things he wasn’t so sure of. So he starts off easy enough, thinking about having the stubbled guy’s hand on his hips. It would be a little rough, but it wouldn’t hurt. He would still be able to move, but then the guy would pin him, either to a wall or the bed, hold him steady and then kiss him. The guys in the picture aren’t kissing but they probably had at the start. He can imagine that it would feel a lot different from kissing a girl, especially with the stubble. Would it be like a burning sensation on his chin? Or would he not be able to notice it?

It would be good, he decides. It had to be or people wouldn’t do it. Maybe a little rough, but stubble guy would hold him through it, and even if Daryl wouldn’t know what he was doing, stubble guy wouldn’t mind. He’d use his tongue and it would be so good, building up and up and then stubble guys hand would move from his waist to press over his crotch and Daryl knows he’d press into it.

Letting his own hips buck up a little he enjoys the pressure of his own palm against his hard cock, strong, easy to grind against, just the right amount of pressure. It feels good and he feels brave enough to let out a little moan. Would stubble guy like if he made noise? Probably, he’d probably like knowing that Daryl liked what he was doing. Maybe it would make stubble guy take it a step further, and he’d stroke over Daryl’s crotch before moving to slip his hands under Daryl’s underwear and wrap his fingers round his cock.

Looking down at the image of stubble guy, Daryl lets himself imagine that it’s not his hand he’s wrapping around his cock, but instead it’s the other man’s. They’d be face to face as they started, still kissing open mouthed with tongues and moaning, and pressing together. He shivers a little and can’t help but pant a little as he rubs over his cock, looking over the image before him. It would develop from there, and maybe stubble guy would move to kiss over his neck, and they’d move and Daryl would try to reciprocate but stubble guy would stop him.

Because it would be about Daryl, and stubble guy would take control. He’d like that. He’d like having someone to tell him what to do since he had no idea himself. And maybe…maybe he wouldn’t mind if they ended up in the same position as the guys in the picture. Chewing on his bottom lip he strokes himself slowly, letting his hips buck up a little as he thinks about that properly.

He’s never…he’s never thought about it before. About the whole anal thing. But that’s how guys did it and it does look enjoyable. At least they make it look like it’s good. He can see that stubble guy is moaning, his hips flush against the other man’s ass and Daryl knows where his dick is. It’s got to be good, he would probably enjoy it. Heck he wants to enjoy it. Groaning a little he continues pumping at his cock, feeling himself leak over his own fingers at the mere thought of it all.

It makes him pant in short warm puffs of air, he’s warm, hair starting to stick to his forehead where he’s starting to sweat and he wants more. Shoving the magazine further up the bed, Daryl moves to get on his knees, pressing his free hand to the bedspread beside the image and trying to picture himself in the other guy’s place. Kneeling there he could imagine having the weigh of someone else behind him, it would be someone else’s fingers wrapped around his cock and pumping him hard as he was fucked.

His dick jerks at the thought of it, leaking over himself and onto the bedspread in excitement of it all. Moaning lightly he chews on his lip, thinking about what it would feel like. The best word he can possibly think of that comes close to his expectation is, full. He’d probably feel full but in a good way. Like pressure or something but inside of him. He knew there was something in there that made it feel good, like a g-spot or something, surely it would feel good if stubble guy’s dick rubbed over that.

Focussing on the image, Daryl tries to imagine what motions they’d been doing when the picture had been taken. Of course they’d been fucking, and he can’t help but buck his hips forward a little, his dick sliding into his grip and making him grunt at the feeling of fucking his own fist. Pressing back he tries to imagine what it would be like to have something there, someone there to press back against. Everything already feels so good he can’t help but feel daring and it’s with a shaky breath that he’s leaning back, getting his balance on his knees before reaching down to rub over his balls.

It always feels good when he’s this sensitive, and the head of his dick is covered in pre come as he squeezes lightly over his balls. Looking over the picture again he licks his lips, taking in a shaky breath before letting his fingers press a little further back than he is used to. It’s not great, but it’s sensitive and he shivers a little as he rubs his fingers over the skin there. He continues letting his hips ease back and forth, fucking his fist loosely as he continues rubbing over the new area he’s found. Sometimes things took a while to feel good, and he’s not come this far to just give up.

Daryl makes sure he’s careful as he rubs over himself, keeping his touch light enough not to hurt, but firm enough to be felt over the sensitive skin. It’s certainly different from anything he’s felt before and before long it kind of starts to feel pretty good. He likes the pressure there, and it sort of feels like getting some extra friction on the inside of his dick, as crazy as that sounds. Yeah, he’s pretty sure he likes this, he likes this a lot.

Moaning lightly he looks over the image again and imagines getting to actually experience this with someone. He would moan and press back for more, get to feel someone pressed up against his back, holding him steady, fucking him hard and stroking him off at the same time. It makes him moan, it makes his cock leak even more onto his fingers and when he presses his fingers back a little more, everything feels so damned good he can’t help himself.

He can’t take his eyes off the picture when he finally comes, imagining how good it would feel if there was someone else here with him. His cock pulses in his hand, his come shooting out in bursts against the bedspread and Daryl can barely breathe it feels so damned good. Rocking his hips lightly through each pulse he dares to press his fingers back again over that spot and it’s like another burst of pleasure hits him. It makes him crumple a little, curling over the new stain on his sheets and panting hard through the come down.

The magazine is still open as he lets himself relax, uncurling his legs from beneath him and grabbing at the tissues to start cleaning up. He’s sensitive, but isn’t he always. Humming lightly to himself he tosses the now dirty tissues aside and redresses himself before sprawling out on the bed. A part of him can’t believe how much of a difference it had all made, but he’s definitely glad that he’d bought the magazine. It had been worth every bit of worry he’d gone through and he knows he’s definitely going to be trying that again.

Over the next few days Daryl explores the rest of the magazine, actually reading the articles at some point and learning some things about gay culture that he’d never even thought about before. He goes through the other images, finds that he likes to just look at the half naked men sometimes to enjoy the view even if he doesn’t feel like jerking off. There are bits he finds he doesn’t like, some of the more hardcore images kind of freak him out, the ones with toys especially look far too intense for him. But the double page spread of stubble guy fucking the other man stays his favourite.

It’s still a secret though. The magazine lives inside the newspaper and hidden beneath his mattress when he’s not using it, but really he figures porn shouldn’t be left out on display anyway. Not that he’s house-proud or anything, but it just seemed to make sense for it to be hidden away from view. The rest of his life carries on as normal, he hunts, he eats, he sleeps and soon enough the magazine just becomes a part of his routine too. He doesn’t forget about it, but he stops thinking of it as anything special, it just becomes a part of his life.

A couple of weeks later and he’s heading back home after setting up some traps, trudging through the mud and humming to himself when he notices the car pulled up outside the house. His heart leaps a little in happiness when he realises what that means. Merle is home.

Quickening his pace he practically skips up the porch steps, dropping his crossbow to its usual spot by the door and looking about for his brother. There’s a beer open beside the couch so Merle’s already made himself at home, but he’s not sprawled on the couch in his usual spot. “Hey asshole!” Daryl calls out, grinning to himself as he starts checking around the house. “You’d better have brought enough beer for me as well.”

The kitchen is empty, bathroom is clear and so is Merle’s old room, so it’s with a frown that he steps further down the hall to where he sees his own bedroom door ajar. Rolling his eyes a little, he wonders if Merle even knew what manners were sometimes.

“Hey you prick, haven’t you ever heard of privacy before?” He snarls, knocking open the door the rest of the way to find his brother standing in his room with his back to him.

Daryl’s about to call him out on being such a dick, first of all leaving without saying where he was going, again, and second for barging into his room. But then Merle turns to face him with a raised eyebrow and Daryl’s throat dries up when he sees what his brother’s holding in his hand. His magazine.

It’s like everything around him freezes. There’s no sound, no breeze coming through the open window, no nothing at all. But he can feel his heart thudding in his chest like it’s about to break his ribs. He can’t seem to take his eyes off the magazine in Merle’s hand, and even though the front page is just a shirtless guy, suddenly it looks far more pornographic. It looks accusing, it looks wrong in Merle’s hand and Daryl finds that he can barely breathe anymore. He should say something, but he seems to have forgotten every word in the English language all of a sudden.

“What’s this little brother?” Merle asks and Daryl is suddenly very aware of his hands.

He doesn’t know how he should stand, his hands are at his sides loosely but he doesn’t know if he should move. It feels like he’s hyper aware of everything he’s doing and he can really feel the silence between them stretching when he can’t answer. What the fuck was he supposed to say?

This wasn’t supposed to happen. It has been a secret for so long. He’d never even spoken the damned word and now here he was with Merle practically asking him outright. He’d been so good at keeping it to himself, he’d hidden it away for years and now it was suddenly all out in the open and he’s very aware of feeling like he’s going to throw up.

It’s damned fucking quiet between the two of them, Merle is watching him, he can feel it, but he can’t look up from the floor. If he looks up at his brother it’ll be real, he’ll have to say it, he’ll have to look Merle dead in the eye and say the word he’s been avoiding for the whole of his life. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. It wasn’t even ever supposed to happen. It was a secret, it was supposed to stay a secret forever, he was fine with that. He’d prepared for that and now everything was suddenly very fucking wrong.

He tries to breathe, but his chest feels tight, his hands are shaking when he clenches them into fists and he doesn’t know what the fuck to do. It’s like his whole life has been flipped on its head and he suddenly feels very unstable. He doesn’t have an answer, the silence is heavy and when he finally remembers how to breathe again, it’s stuttered and catches in his throat. This was it. This was how he lost everything.

Daryl honestly thinks he’s going mad when he hears laughter.

It takes a lot to look up from his feet, but when he does he has to blink a few times to make sure what he’s seeing is real. Merle is laughing. Merle is standing there in his bedroom, flicking through the pages of a gay porn magazine and fucking laughing. He feels sick.

“You know, this actually explains a lot.” Merle speaks as if he’s talking to himself, still flicking through the pages of the magazine, and scanning everything he finds. But the thing that’s freaking Daryl out is the look on his face. Merle is fucking smiling. Not glaring, not cringing in disgust, he’s just smiling as if this is the funniest thing he’s seen in a while.

It’s wrong. Daryl’s always been worried about his brother finding out, it’s the whole reason it’s been a secret his whole life. But the nightmares he’d always had about it were nothing like this. He’d expected Merle to turn on him in seconds. His big brother is the only person who’s ever cared about him, and the thought of losing that had been the whole damned reason for keeping it a secret. The thought of Merle yelling at him had kept him quiet, he’d never said the word because he’d thought Merle would kill him, literally kill him.

But there’s no yelling. There’s no punches being thrown, or words being spat in his face as he tries to fend off an attack. He’d expected to be hit, he’d expected broken bones, he’d expected to be kicked out of the house and left to rot like a stray dog. Daryl had expected to lose his brother because of his secret. Now here he was, with Merle smiling, laughing and not even raising his voice at him as he just accepts the biggest secret of his life.

Like it’s nothing at all.

It’s a lot to take in and Daryl’s damned glad he’s got the doorframe to lean on when he feels a little shaky from it all. But he knows Merle, he knows that sometimes Merle can be the best actor in the damned world and this could all just be some sick game he’s come up with in his twisted mind to get Daryl to admit it all. So he swallows back the nerves, he prepares himself for the worst and tries to find his voice.

“You ain’t…” And he has to pause, because his fucking voice cracks and he feels so damned pathetic that he needs to just breathe for a moment. “You ain’t gonna kill me?” He asks, fists clenched and ready to defend himself if he had to.

Merle snorts out a laugh through his nose, still leafing through the pages of the magazine as he answers. “For what, being queer?” Then he does laugh properly, grin on his face as he turns the magazine sideways to inspect an image that’s caught his eye. “Course not. Remember Vinnie I trained with when I joined the military? Gay as they come, didn’t make a damned bit of difference to me. Didn’t stop him from being a man, just like this doesn’t stop you from being my baby brother.”

It’s the last few words that make it all too much. Because when it came down to it, the whole reason for him keeping his secret, the whole reason for never saying the word, for hiding this all from the world, was because he didn’t want to lose Merle. He’d been so terrified of losing the only person who’d ever given a shit about him and it had all been for nothing. Years of hiding it all from him, a lifetime of keeping his secret and never saying the word out loud was for naught. Merle didn’t care. Merle still wanted him anyway.

It feels like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders and suddenly everything he’s been holding inside of him for so long feels like it’s breaking free. He’s not proud of it, but try as he might, he can’t stop himself as he breaks down. The tears come whether he wants them to or not, and though he feels like he can breathe again, all that he can manage are stuttered sobs as it all becomes too much.

“Hey, what’re you crying for?”

For everything. He wants to explain, he wants to tell Merle just how much this means to him. Because it’s been a huge, if hidden, part of his life for so damned long and suddenly having it out there, in the open and not being hated for it, feels like too much. It feels unreal. It feels too good to be true and a part of him is still so afraid that this is all some damned joke that Merle is playing on him. It feels fragile, he feels fucking torn apart and open and so very exposed.

But the words get caught in his throat, lodged there behind all the fear and the nerves, and he can’t explain it all to Merle. Daryl knows it’s pathetic to cry like this, but he can’t stop, not after the whole emotional upheaval that the past few minutes have been. The tears drip from his chin to the floor, landing with a patter on the stained carpet between his feet and he fucking shudders with each damned sob that rips from his throat.

He flinches when a hand cups around the back of his neck, Merle yanks him forward in a manner that’s anything but gentle, and Daryl finds himself crushed to his big brother’s chest. That makes it all the more real and he can’t help but whimper, reaching up with trembling fingers to latch onto Merle’s shirt and hold himself close. He’d been so damned afraid of what would happen if it ever came out, so terrified of being kicked away, of being abandoned again, of being alone. He needed Merle and the fact that his brother is still here, holding him, not shoving him away with a sneer, it means fucking everything to him.

A hand rubs over his back, smoothing circles between his shoulder blades and making him feel almost like he’s being held properly. This is as close as they’ve ever been to hugging, and it’s more than enough to let him know that Merle actually means it when he says. “It’s all okay baby brother. It’s all gonna be okay.”

And he actually believes him for once. Because Merle is still here, he’s holding him and rubbing his back, and he’s not yelling or hitting or throwing him out of his life and abandoning him. His big brother lets him sob onto his shoulder, clinging to him like a damned child and yet not once does he shove him back. Merle still wants him. Even now that the secret is out there and the word has been said, Merle is still here for him.

His brother chuckles, that same laugh he’s used to, and it’s not hurtful, it’s just somewhat normal as Merle pulls back to look at him. “Damn boy, you really have gotta be gay, bawling your eyes out like that.” But Merle is smiling to him, reaching up with his sleeve and scrubbing harshly at Daryl’s face as if he’s a toddler crying over scraped knees. It hurts, but it’s real, it’s harsh and it’s so very Merle that it’s actually reassuring.

Daryl finds himself laughing, just a small chuckle, but it’s there and he can breathe again. Merle is grinning like an idiot to him, moving to clasp at his shoulder like he usually does and Daryl sniffs back any more tears or sobs that are caught in his throat. Now wasn’t the time to be crying, even if was still all a bit overwhelming for him.

“Now come and have a beer with your big brother.” Merle tells him, shoving past without any fanfare, stomping down the hall back to the living area and Daryl can hear as he slumps down onto the couch.

It still feels unreal. Daryl still feels anxious and a little unsure about it being out there, being real. But it is. Merle didn’t care that he was gay. Merle still wanted him to be his brother. Merle was still here. It’s new and he knows it’s going to take some getting used to, but he reaches up to wipe away the tear tracks on his cheeks before turning to go and share a beer with his brother.

He leaves the magazine on the bedspread, out in the open.


End file.
